Summer Begins (dress rehearsal)

And I'm in the front row, on my porch, doing the last weekend of Astronomy homework EVER, and trying to get some solar remedial treatment for my head and chest cold. Alas, it is breezy and in the low 60s, a tad chilly to be in this tanktop and shorts, but I just keep moving into the widening band of sun.

It feels like I've been somewhere, even to me, like Spring Term was some sort of season on Survivor, a show I don't even watch. And I'm still on the island, somehow, holding the soggy torch and looking very pitiful. Sort of how my tomato plants look right now, waiting for the heat and sun, limping along, in their fixed tomato plant way. When we were through with April, I was happy to be done with it and don't need a three week nostalgic rehash of it in June.

Almost 4pm and the wind is still chilly, tarnation! Perhaps I should put the books and notes away, to show the proper sunshine readiness, to call in the blazing rays.

My neighbors' raised bed gardens are doing so much better than ours, with their fresh black sifted organic soils from Portland Nursery, and more shelter from the wind than ours. The inches of new mulch look great still, the herbs and roses look splendid, the lavender and lamb's ears are purple as far as the lot line. Next weekend, when exams and work are done for the week, I will come out here and make up for all the lost time I spent studying and writing papers for Keanu.
Who I am not giving a copy of my paper to after all. What if I wind up being a TA in the department and he's got students reading my paper on a sensitive chapter of my life? Eeww.
It's flattering and all, but I'm already over that and experiencing the relief of being done with his class and all the folderal of the dynamics in there.

Besides, he revealed that his real full-time job is being a writer and editor for something or some place, and this is just his part time gig, jacking people around in the name of anthropology.

This only raised my hackles some more. That's why he was grading my syntax and not the substance of my anthropology work. Putz! But I've moved on. Really.

Sure, this is merely stalling, taking a break from the second half of the dreaded-A practice exam. My head feels like a skewered cork you found under your refrigerator from a previous tenant, the dry coughing has blown my eardrums back and forth too many times to be good. "All I wanna do is have some sun..."

Weeding in the Rain

please read today's Poppalina

Washed my hands long enough to throw a load of clean clothes into the dryer, and check Poppalina, otherwise known as Shula in Australia, whom I adore and want to have a drink with someday. Okay, one of those swimming-pool sized mojitos complete with umbrellas and plastic jewel-colored monkeys hanging from the rim.

And pulling weeds in a misty rain rewards me with the complete 8" long withered roots of the freakin' dandelions and their cousins the thorny variety, and that is a Warm Fuzzy to we gardening types.

This has been a stiff term for me. It's almost over, no more Professor Keanu and astrophysics will return to being a hobby, thanks for all the software and the Hubble websites!

I got the job on campus with the bankers hours, and was beat tired after only the first week. Too funny. It will all blend in nicely with the rest of my life and classes, so I will sleep more, big deal. Having today off both work and school to make a a three day weekend was very restorative, hurling me out to the weed bed between loads of washing and chatting with neighbors, talking tomatoes. I added some borrowed mint varieties to the herb rock garden, cleared away some of the lambs ears obscuring the blooming thyme and blooming sages, and left space for the basils yet to be procured. My echinaceas came back, and now I'm thinking yarrow, both red and yellow. Portland Nursery again in my future. Another neighbor has some bronze fennel---wonder if he'd want some of these lambs ears? Another neighbor has some beautiful monarda, and Steven's getting rudebeckia. If it were up to me, I'd pull out all but one clump of the lambs ears and plant more lavenders, there are sweet white and pink varieties. A bunch of my mammoth sunflowers are emerging from the dirt, and four cucumber plants are ready to put in.

If we had a goat, these weeds would get eaten and recycled as fertilizer. I want to be an urban homesteader...

Hired-Up

My interview for work went well enough on Monday that I was offered the job on Friday. The job I was iffy about for more money, not the library job I was excited about for less.

So after mulling it over for a few hours, I decided to sign on and re-join the working class, take the plunge, and as Dr Strangelove would say, "How I stopped worrying (about $$$) and learned to love the bomb," or Job. Whatever. Being two terms into the student experience, and actually looking at graduation for Summer 2009, I am not as worried about being sucked into a work situation that I enable by making myself indispensable to my boss, then finding my feet captured by quick-curing cement into the foundation workings of the established business. I can balance things better now after the hiatus and back-to-school trail, and I'm actually thinking how higher income can help me out with some things, like modern dentistry and and the urban homesteading ideas germinating in my noggin.

This Spring Term was tougher on me than I'd have thought, the astro-physical strain was high, and all those many equation-analyzing hours would not have been available to cover a real job and still squeak out a decent grade for this degree-requirement class. It's somehow all working out, and when the hiring manager replied to my acceptance email, she said my current class schedule was perfect for their scheduling needs for now, and being term oriented, schedules are always readjusted to accommodate the students' classtimes. I like this. Going forward, I'll be packing together as many Anthropology classes into each term as I can and don't see anything ahead as brain-reconfiguring as teaching myself Trigonometry by doing forensics on equation fragments to determine cause of impossible results. All that effort will now go back into my major classes, and brainspace for learning a new workplace culture and software system.

And it is summer, after all. Finally picked up some plants for the garden yesterday morning, some hearty tomato starts at Fred Meyer's Founders Day sale, and those quaint forget-me-nots I've been craving since forever for that shady corner under the mock orange bush. In Michigan my grandparents had a pink version of it too, and the blue with some pink carpeted the shade under the huge lilac bushes by the rhubarb patch. The cheerful purple and yellow faces of johnny-jump-up pansies rounded it out as a border. They all reseeded and came back after every harsh Michigan winter. Slowly, but steadily, I am gaining ground in the ultimate conversion of this home into a facsimile of the family 1902 homestead that I loved so much growing up. Okay, a mix of that and the Bath Street house, the two old houses I hated to leave behind. We double Cancers are just a mess with this house business, I've surrendered completely to it and have much more peace now. It just is this way.

Four cucumber plants, five types of tomatoes, beans, peas, peppers, sunflowers, herbs, and now I'm thinking potatoes. A trip to the Limbo organic market for some specimens to let go spiky with sprouting eyes, to cut up and plant in a big pot like Kathy does, and where can lettuce fit in, and a bush soybean? Sprouts of Texas red grapefruit seeds are working in a shallow sushi tray and I started another avocado pit in water. These of course are hot climate dreams, or the beginnings of cultured trees in a conservatory to be built when the neighbors gather to re-claim the lot where Steven's house is. He still plays along that it's okay to have his house moved off the lot and donate it to charity, so his 'friendly' neighbors can converge on the plot and create the communal garden space with bamboo tea house I've been dreaming of. What a great sport.

The Ends of the Earth

I fell off, it's true.

It may have been the 12 straight episodes of Deadwood DVDs, or the complete freedom of no classes, no job, no worries. Or too many hours on the phone with Florida. This week I have been remembering Bruno and not in the mood to write anything. Last week I was reeling from how tough the Astronomy class was turning out to be.

Today I sat on the porch after school, soaked up the sunshine, and read textbooks, all the while realizing that there's been such a shift in the whole picture. A change of season brings these bubbles floating to the surface of my mind, along with wanting to do some mental spring cleaning as well.

No, going back to school has not yet become day-to-day la-de-da no big deal. It is still a huge big deal, although the walking along the park blocks marveling that I'm there is ebbing. I'm busting my ass some days just race walking to get there on time, taking the flights of stairs without gasping, not wanting to sit in a sweat through a class. I snarked off at one of my professors last week and am still cringing when I meet his eye in class, sitting silent through animated discussions like a mushroom, not contributing, now enduring every minute of a class in my major that I had been really looking forward to doing well in. Shit.

But getting thoroughly saturated in this new endeavor has definitely shut the door on any lingering vestiges of my old retail manager's life and mental space. One of my old employees is in my astronomy class and we got caught up afterwards yesterday, and it was really the first time the whole B-store episode felt done done done and dead to me, really fully behind me and in the past. Can I be allowed the slack to take a bit long to move beyond a ten+ year period of my life and identity? Stockholm Syndrome, I think it's called, otherwise known as drinking the Kool-Aid, Corporate Culture. I did go into it kicking and screaming, as I recall. But then you find yourself accepting that first promotion and going salary instead of hourly---your soul is signed over and you bitch about it every moment until you get out. The relief is overwhelming.

Of course, I'm looking for work now, and going over all of this in my head again, how do I go about this again, doing the work part without signing over the soul part? What do I know now, to do better this time? They don't need my soul, they just need me to show up and do a good job while I'm there. Whatever it is, a campus office type spot would be perfect.

Last spring about this time I had just put Betty on a plane after 12 days and was recovering by spending intense time in the garden. After getting all the dandelions, I put in the tomato starts and some herbs, weedcloth and mulch, marigolds, nasturtiums and lobelias. This spring I'm lagging behind, spending more time enjoying the season, watching Peg shoveling woodchips, cheering her on. "Isn't it beer-thirty yet?" I hollar out. "Can't slow down yet, I'm on a roll," she throws over her shoulder on her way to another load. I go back inside for another beer, I'm getting exhausted just watching her. Gotta start those pea and bean plants, I'm thinking, there's enough sun now. Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Finals

My last week of classes for the Winter 2008 term have been this week---finished already. Crazy.
One more archaeology class Friday, then exams Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday.

Then let Spring Break begin!

Not that I need a break, I'm still all fired up and being a goof about it all. Still.
As the week went by, more and more of the syllabi were getting shortened, running out of term, less to have to cover for the finals. Then today, one prof said "I've decided the exam will not be cumulative, just cover what we've done since the mid-term." The class of 90-something students broke out into rowdy applause. She smiled in relief and her shoulders fell about a foot from around her ears. She doesn't have a TA this term---poor soul.

Next term looks bright, too. The last Intro Anthropology class, the last PSU-peculiar "university studies cluster course" requirement (I picked Medieval Studies), and Roman History. However, this class may or may not work out, the 10-minute break between classes to get from one building to the other won't be enough time to get 5 blocks and at least four stories up from the Engineering Building to central campus Cramer Hall. What's a history class doing at the Engineering Building? Is this class heavily chosen by engineering students or something? I'd need a golf cart to do that sprint, so I may have to change it out if they don't reassign it to a closer building. The Roman part of my art history class was my favorite section, so I want to know all about Rome now. Everything. This happens to me all the time. You should see all the books I have on Egypt...

It's fun to read the texts and go over the notes and feel like you know this stuff, no need to cram. The idea I heard about is that your short-term memory files things you learn straight into your mid-to-long-term memory if you study, then take a nap or call it a night and go to bed. So while I'm dreaming about Bruce Campbell as a trapeze artist like Errol Flynn in a technicolor movie in my brain theater complete with a glass harmonica orchestra playing circus tunes, all that biological anthropology and paleoanthropology material is becoming part of my mental office studio (this happened). There it will be, all that information, forever close to the tip of my tongue to horrify and bore my friends, "Hey, that reminds me of this group of hominids who walked across an ash field---wait, don't go, okay I'll stop."

Now that Garden Season is here, prepping the Garden anyway, it will serve as the great balancer of brain and body. Being in the dirt releases a trip-switch in my head, and I work out all kinds of things while weeding, planting, gathering marigold seeds, or ripping out last year's wintered-over stems and stalks. What could be wiser than reading textbooks while enjoying porch time and the tomato starts?

All is well.

Casting a Spring Spell

Daphne, violets and trilliums. Crocuses, narcissus, daffodils and camellias.

Standing in the full sunshine, facing south in a sheltered spot, it feels like June. Then, step into the breeze that's wafting all that perfume towards you, and it's a gentle mid-50s, your black t-shirt soaking up enough warmth to keep you perfectly comfortable sitting out in front of Stumptown Cafe on Division this afternoon. Or Common Grounds, or Fireside, or Javaman---or your own sidewalk stoop. I won't wave at you, I don't want to disturb the vibe we're each riding, I know what listening to ancient French court music in the sun while inhaling fresh violets does to me, I can imagine how amazing your trip is right now. You still have the laptop open before you, but your gaze is a million light years away.

You can stop time, for a little while anyway, by taking a deep breath and releasing it like an evaporating shadow, and disappear along with it. Then just pay attention to all the wonder flowing along around you, over you, through you like a smooth rock in a strong river. Like the faint mandolin floating from somewhere, the violets again, the bus and the dog barking, the bell on the cafe door, your coffee keeping your palm warm, the sun through your eyelids, a crumb of that scone on your lip melting yum, skateboarder growling past, that guy must be playing mandolin on his porch----

Hours can pass this way in clock time, but you've just enjoyed a lozenge of eternity that will remain in your neuron memory the remainder of your life. Sometimes the moment feels like an illuminated spiders web humming, or cool damp and comforting beach sand when the waves rush out again. Pick your talisman, they're your treasures.

Repeat often, as necessary, wherever, whenever you are

Just in Time

Since I've been walking back and forth each day to class, I keep going past this wall, and thinking, "I really need to bring my camera and shoot this wall, one of these mornings, these stones will be on the sidewalk."

Today, the entire block south and west of this corner was barricaded off, yellow police tape, cones, detour signs, the works.

So after I finished class, I went back there and filled the memory card, getting yelled at by guys in reflective vests and hard hats working on the other side of the street re-directing traffic. Some change is pending with this wall, and tomorrow it maybe started.

This wall was the main impetus for the Moss Project, although I've been thinking about it since November while leaf raking and noticing the amazing moss specimens glowing in the low sunlight. I felt like I was in a magical Welsh forest, here come the primeval wood sprites.
So, this is my newest garden in winter project, and saw all these camellias in bloom, and a trail of what I swore was jasmine. I had to track it down, and found this: below









So while I'm doing all this urban trekking, and in the barest time of year in foliage and bloom terms, this city is full of winter color and growth.
And the Moss Project will go on for a while...



This giant auger was getting placed as I was catching my homebound bus this afternoon...I'd have kicked myself for catching this amazing image but not having my camera with me. The antique steampunk pile driver was resting as the crew was smoothly landing this screwdriver from hell. I love this picture.

Here's another one, looking south:


So this huge build is at the base of the Hawthorne Bridge, and all this rich brown earth is being loaded onto double trailer trucks, hundreds of years of Willamette River floodwash and wharfside debris, clinking red bricks and crusts of old asphalt paving slipping down a thousand years into the pit. Welders, crane operators and hardhat conferences going on around the perimeter, and the rain starts coming down in a mist. Climate is a constant, and I get onto the warm dry bus. Will the wall be there in the morning?

After School Snack

Well, really it's lunch, but it is after school, my first day of school, my first round-trip to class and back. Toasted white tuna sandwich with lettuce and sweet relish and an orange.

Bliss.

And even more synchronous, my textbook for today's class arrived in the mail this morning already, so I can do the reading assigned before the next class on Wednesday. Is this perfect OR WHAT? My Intro to Archaeology prof is a funny woman who manages to keep her reading glasses hovering above the very end of her nose and they never slide off. About 40 students in all, three over 40 years old, and only two cell phones rang during class. Prof showed some slides at the end of the class period, and then it was suddenly over. Sixty five minutes, syllabus in hand, I went and activated my student email account, then headed home. I'm also seeing new shoes in my future, because it is quite a hike from the bus top to campus and all my Birks need re-soles.

I know it's goofy to be this excited about undergraduate classes, but getting to this humble place has been a 25 year journey. Bringing lots of baggage along. Yes, I'll get a job doing something, I reassured Betty, and gave up trying to explain why I'm majoring in Anthropology. She thinks I'm going to do Forensic Science like on television. Whatever. It's my money, I'm not going to worry about who gets it or not. Everyone else I know is thrilled for me, and that warms my heart so much, my enthusiasm is contagious, my face glows with it. "I got a fever, babies!" says my inner Christopher Walken. Say no more.

Chop wood, carry water. That's what you do before you are enlightened, and what you resume doing after you are enlightened. So today, I'm doing laundry and washing dishes, while reading my text between loads of clothes and dishes. I'll try not to be a total spaz and call everyone to twitter about class. But as I went over the Hawthorne Bridge this morning, it dawned on me how many of my deepest life wishes have come true in the last couple years. Big BIG wishes, major Life's Dream types. Going back to school, to get an upper college degree---in motion again. Meeting Robert Plant in person---September 2005. Having my own bookstore---done. Being a writer---varying degrees of consistency, but happening. What's left? Well, going to Provence is huge. And large-canvas painting. Singing in public. Creating a permanent grand-scale garden with a varietal bamboo grove and tea house. Finding a great guy. I think that's about it. And I think they all look doable from here, because the really big ones at the top of the list are checked off already. Holy shit! So so cool.

Tomorrow morning is Intro to Biological Anthropology, and Asian Women's Studies, a senior level class. Hominids, neolithic tool makers, the beginning of art. Asian cultures to prehistory and the roles of women in it. No wonder I can hardly sleep at night, I feel incendiary about this stuff. "So why aren't you taking any business classes?" Betty wanted to know. There's no fire there for me, it's a bucket of someone else's cold ashes, not even mine. Finally, I'll quit explaining, it should be evident to everyone by now.

Last Chance, Sundance

*sigh*


Such high hopes for harvest, such dwindling results, and I'm talking tomatoes now.

Seven plants.

Planted the end of April, that caught all those sunny and hot May days, tenderly staked & watered.

I was planning on washtubs of salsa, pasta sauce, mountains of BLTs, maybe even a little table with a sign, "Heirloom Slicers, $2.00 a bag".

Maybe next year.

I'm taking the AC unit out of the window today, putting the box fans into the crawl space along with the AC, and switching out the duvet cover to the one that's already faded on one side from the reappearing southern sun in the bedroom windows. Moving the feline Lido Sun Deck of their permanent life-time cruise closer to the heater, and folding all the sleeveless shirts and assigning them to the back of the closet. Sweater Sniff-Test 101: Hint of Tresor perfume? Not cleaned since being laid off. Mrs. Meyers' Lemon Verbena and woolly? Recently handwashed, okay to hang in the closet. Where's my leather jacket now? How did I accumulate all these scarves? And how come it still isn't enough? Time to start another pair of fingerless gloves in some of that new Noro yarn? (calm down)

Summer's over in more ways than one. I am excited to be going into Fall (or Q3 & Q4 as we used to say) without thinking of it as The Holiday Build. I am hoping to perhaps enjoy this strange winter time habit of gift-giving and over eating that you earthlings call The Holidays.
I found my large gift bag of Christmas CDs that I took to the store every year, right on the floor in the living room closet where I heaved it in January, and I didn't even cringe. That's progress!

Sunwise, we're where we were in March, Equinox time, and continually working our way back again to December and Winter Solstice. This is how we Porch Worshippers calculate time, where is the Sun and when? Imagine trying to ripen tomatoes outside in the sun in March. You see why I despair. Thanks to my friendly neighbor Kathy, the solar domes are working their magic on the partly sunny and overcast days, but when it's full-on sunshine, I run out there and pull them off, do my Ripening Ritual Dance, then run inside before the police arrive.

This past spring, as the sun strengthened and the days lengthened, I felt less and less like working and more and more into seeking---answers, alternatives, peace of mind, perspectives, my current state of being. Autumn brings me back into wanting to get busy, languid is over, my mind sharpens, my hands are restless, I need a brisk walk, the day needs to be scheduled and the To Do List is no longer the TA-DA List, because now it's detailed and lengthly. It sounds almost like Boss Lady is back, and that may be so, in such a way that I am roping my own stray cattle in, that roamed all summer in the tall grass. Those green tomatoes are in for some serious discipline in their ripening attitude.

Sorry for the interruption...

Let me introduce you to my little friends...

l to r we have Senorita Zapotec, behind her a stripy black Brandywine, assorted Sungolds and Sugar Babys, and two Black Princes.

Plus I've been making a large dent in a fragrant pile of bark mulch, that only caught fire one time last week, as I'm happy to join any landscaping party that involves frozen strawberry daiquiris and rum raisin ice cream as a parting gift. Bring on another pile!
As we Portlanders know, we are about reaching the tail end of our splendid summer, and I have been spending every possible moment outside with the sunshine. So bring out some pillows to blind-stitch, buttons to card, the lap-top to write, weed some more and water the herbs, deadhead the roses, ride my bike to the library, read craigslist on the porch---tick tick tick as the sun heads south and sinks earlier behind the houses across the street. We put hoodies on by 6:30 lately, and that used to be the intense solar bake time. Next year again, I console myself.

I am so happy to declare that all my pillows sold out at Groovy Rhubarb, so the crush is on to crank out some more, as well as do some research for some friends who are interested in maybe starting up a book-type store that serves coffee. As a joke I told customers in January that after being laid off by Borders, I was going to open a consulting business. No joke after all. It's an exciting project for me, and makes the multi-stream new career that much more interesting.
Between the photography and the writing, research and selling, manufacturing and gardening, I am almost there. With heirloom tomatoes everyday! Other than my pal Linsey, I don't miss the old retail grind at all. I still get a little managerial when I go to Powells and see the can't-pretend-to-care service, and am disappointed these folks aren't a little more happy to be playing with books all day, but I'm getting better. I'm not buying books there, I'm selling, by the way. Plus, they sell CRAFTzine, okay?

The Grinning Reaper

No words, no mere utterances of lowly mortals can begin to describe the rapture of this harvest.

On the left, an almost ripe, pink pleated heirloom Zapotec. On the right, the pleated wonder of a fully ripe pink heirloom Zapotec. * sigh *

The Black Princes, lovely and splendidly flavoured, were unable to make it intact to the photo shoot. The Reaper is not big on delayed gratification.

So now I stalk the strip-ed Brandywines, following their every movement, listening to their plans to escape their doom, dispersing their feeble attempts to group together and trip me in the bark mulch. It is inevitable. They know this. And still they plot to avoid their Fate by staying green so damn long that they think I will lose interest and go away.

Silly Brandywines, sheltered heirlooms that they are, lacking in the hybrid's street sense that outwitting the Reaper is impossible. They smile and pretend they don't see me, la la la la la and play their stupid heirloom tomato games. What do you expect from such upper-crust stock, always being catered to, protected, hand-watered like pansies, out of touch with the grim reality of life in an urban garden? What do they think the Squirrels will do to them? Well, I can tell you, what! They will visit upon those pompous Brandywines a slow torture the likes of which they've never seen, a nibble here, a nibble there, pulling them from their fellows, stretching their stems, swinging from them like drunken sailors from chandeliers. Then a gang of those long tailed Inquisitors will yank that sanctimonious tomato from its bristling stem and sink its needle claws into it, then go in for the kill with its foul yellow gnashing teeth. Tumbling along the path, gathering dirt and bark and squirrel spit along the way, that now-humbled Brandywine will cry all the way to the compost pile, boo hoo hoo, where he now thinks the punishment is over, how low he has fallen, oh how he misses his tender loving gardener.

But it isn't over. Oh, no no no. Night falls. The whimpers of the injured Brandywine have quieted, and he's thinking of how his progeny will be sprouting next spring in this disreputable spot, but he at least will live on somehow. A small solace upon his deathbed. His tears dry, and he's comforted that it's so quiet. Peaceful.
Then, a rustle, and a scamper over the fence, thump. Could it be, that damned squirrel again, oh the humiliation of it all! But, no. So dark, so evil, so menacing---it is El Rato!! The glint in the darkness comes closer and closer, above which appears beady narrowed eyes and forward-pointing whiskers. The breath is horrible and the black bony claws grasping the helpless tomato are caked with the lost souls of now-forgotten garden victims. The Brandywine has no chance of escape now, and dies beneath this rodent vampire like the wimpy little twit he was all along.

Tomatoes, surrender to your fate! Resistance is FUTILE!!

Belly Full of Beans

Another rapturous morning moment spent in the local Garden of Eden, surveying how the midnight rain refreshed K & H's plantings. So I can be forgiven for grazing on some tender green beans while singing to cats and other Deva garden spirits? I'm keeping your Mojo going while y'all are away. There's plenty of time and many sunny days ahead to replenish your stock by the time you get back. Then I returned home to water the porch planters that were teased by the rain but got no love, and then polished off a few handfuls of gold and red cherry toms. I like this hunter-gatherer stuff. This was truly a Breakfast of Champions.

The tide has turned on this summer, it is really noticeable in the evenings now. Not being one of those folks who hungers for autumn anymore, I am hanging on to this cooler and gentler summer for dear life, the green that lasted throughout, the earth unscorched for a change. Maybe we in the Willamette Valley can slide slowly slowly into a two month Indian summer, some spicy notes, some golden hints in the trees, lots of southern sloping sunshine and crisp blue skies, liquid honey sunsets. No rains, no frosts, no permaclouds, no gray windows, not until November anyway. The tomatoes can last that long without frosts, the ones that were on their way to ripening before the sun fell away. I wish.

This year we are thinking about enclosing the porch with the kind of panels that come down in the spring, so the front porch is another room for all but the coldest winter days. Keeping the cold winds out, and letting the warming sunshine through, almost like a public house biergarten.
What else would we be doing out there in the cold? There are three home brews on the schedule---Rubus Maximus, a ruby IPA for our girl Rhubarb romping in the Elysium Fields;
Zephyr Golden Ale, beautifully clear and bright, but packs a wallop; and Bruno Bitter IPA, a dark and robust strong flavored brew with a handsome head. This Autumn will see us swimming in hoppy heaven, so if you are on your way over and hear Jimmy Buffett's live CD and people singing along to "Cheeseburger in Paradise"---you're at the wrong house. But park any where you find a space.

From my window this heavy gray bank of clouds looks like snow, as we used to say in Michigan. Coming from the coast, they look like waves and waves rolling in on the black sand. Two blocks over I can see the top of a maple tree already beginning to go gold the top three feet. This is a huge Japanese maple with small leaves that look like baby dragon feet, and it turns earlier than any other tree in the neighborhood. More accurate than a calendar, with black bark like wrought iron fingers, the tree hovers for a few days as a glowing lantern, before they all fall at once. Sure enough, it's usually the third week of September, and the other trees seem to take the cue.

Not such great weather for the Hawthorne Street Faire this weekend, however. Cool is okay, chilly and rainy is not. Dang. Lots of pedestrians the past few days, and the street renovation is officially done (fanfare) with new crosswalks that drivers still zoom through, and two more lights to snarl up 5pm traffic. I love it that the #14 is a straight shot downtown, but it takes 45 minutes during rush hour to get between downtown and 39th St or vice-versa. So let's add a few more lights...But I digress. Since the turnout at House of Vintage might not be what we all planned on, I hope once the sun returns this coming week, the newly arriving college kids needing STUFF will come here and stock up on funky with mom & dad's SUV to take it back to the pad. Forget about that Scandinavian Nightmare by the airport, don't go! Don't conform!

Keep the Local Love Happening, my brothers and sisters. Peace.

Breakfast with Zephyr

There's a warm and cozy trend lately of posting mouth-watering pictures of your daily breakfast on your blog, or having that be your entire blog content, or a weekly feature and educational snicket (halloumi, how have I lived my whole life without it?).

I don't have a picture of the contents of this morning's breakfast, that may follow some other day with more sunshine and before I have actually eaten it. But what I can tell you about is the delight in coming down the stairs and onto the porch in the morning, sitting on the porch stairs, and having coffee and well-buttered sourdough toast with m'girl Zephyr Golden.

We sit and she listens as I sing meaningless lyrics to her, then she purrs and starts her morning bathing, and we greet the neighbors and their dogs as they pass by. Recently, we were gifted with a snug gold velour armchair, and it has become Zephyr's porch perch, and frequently she sleeps the night in it. This makes an early breakfast with her easy to manage before our hectic schedules carry us off the porch and out into our busy day. The chair also makes a impetuous afternoon snooze very stealthy, when she allows me to nap with her on my lap as she curls up to sleep. We dream wonderful summer afternoon porch dreams, with the warm breeze carrying us over the hydrangeas and Japanese maples, over the bungalow eyebrow roofs, beyond the giant jasmine tree just beginning it's siren song of perfume, to the enchanted bamboo groves where there are endless shadowy paths to explore. We move silently through the slender fronds of black bamboo, arching to become invisible, creeping low to be silent, then folding to sit and watch and wait. For the right time.

Zephyr always sniffs the cafe au lait to determine it's variety (ethiopian) and that the milk is organic, but she's not a coffee drinker. She prefers organic butter to lick off the Portland Sour-dough Wheat toast, but about that she is not as picky. I usually have Yoplait vanilla custard yogurt, and that, as all cats know, is really inferior and too sweet. She returns to her hind leg grooming.

This morning we had another visit from our friendly neighbor dog, who had rushed Zephyr off the porch yesterday morning. This time, the little white dog only came up the first two steps to say 'hi' to me, and didn't press her luck with Zephyr "Hellbeast" Golden. Harmony was maintained, no one got hurt or lost face. By then, we were done noshing, and it was time to get to work. She makes her neighborhood inspections (someone has to do it) and I go back inside and fire up the sewing machine/computer/paper cutter/glue gun/knitting machine/printer and think about tomatoes.

Same time tomorrow, m'girl.

Houston? Hello, Houston? Are you there Houston?

There's the weird phone message from the inside of someone's car, and the beginning is scrambled and incomprehensible. Who would call me from inside their car with a speaker phone---OnStar, oh, it's Betty, naturally. She has the 500 free minutes to burn inside her Cadillac.

She's on her way to dinner with my brother after playing computer Geeks all afternoon, and she's calling to let me know they are canceling all the arrangements we agreed on during the four hours a day hand-holding calls I had with her and the new laptop last week, and I get to hear where they're going to eat, and how far it is from main roads I don't even know the names of in her town, and I realize it's the minutes burning that's the thrill for her at that moment. And I really hope she's not the one driving the yacht while chatting. You can imagine.

I had to go out to the porch and sit for a spell. It was all just too much for me.

She defers to men every frickin' time, it never fails. I've built computers, used them for years, know her better than anyone on earth, and will sit (no longer) and talk her down for hours to get her aimed in the direction I know she needs to wind up in, and will wind up happiest in. Then she does a 180 because she talked to some guy for 15 minutes, and obviously he's the expert.

And will she call the guy when she's frustrated at how her progress and situation is lagging behind and she's impatient for the faster system, the zippier program, the instant results???

No. She'll call me.

Help.

So, after sending her a snooty email yesterday after coming back inside from the porch, I sent her a nice white picket fence and garden path email today, like the snooty email never happened, and went on and on and on about me. I have to chuckle at that, she has a-ways to catch up on her typing, and her emails so far have been 1 or 2 sentences. Heh heh heh. She now knows more about the health and growing habits of my tomatoes than anyone should ever have to endure. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! And the domestic dramas of my neighbors, including dialogue and how many police cars showed up, and which cops were cute, and what kind of pen they used and how short the night shirt was, and and and... Mwah-ha-har-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!

My brother-----you are Officially tagged IT.

Gotta fly!!

Either Writing, or Not-Writing

Being so impressionable, I must admit to a certain ennui about blogging when my bookmarked list of favorite bloggers are not posting, thinking, "Wow, we of similar genius and brilliance must all be on the same no-blog-today page, and I didn't even get the memo---cool."

And, NO, I am not reading that dreaded doorstopper of a book that just came out which shall remain title-less in this space. Ee-gads, perish the thought!

I have been reading, and not magazines, some titles I found through our esteemed Multnomah County Library system, on Hollywood before the Decency Codes were enacted, pre-1938 films.
There is "Complicated Women" featuring the amazing sirens of the time, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Kay Francis, Norma Shearer, Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, Joan Blondell, Jean Harlow, even Loretta Young and Myrna Loy. There's another title I am waiting to be returned, about the male actors in this pre-code era, and another one with huge photographs called, "Sin in Soft Focus" putting it all together. I can blame this all on finally getting the cable package with Turner Classic Movies, where you can start in the 1930s and not emerge until sometime the next day. So it has compelled me to begin reading again, perhaps finally warming up enough to read the new non-fiction Barbara Kingsolver book, "Animal Vegetable Miracle," the new novel "The Blood of Roses" about a young girl in Afghanistan (I think) who makes carpets, and another book on the new physics wave/particle field emanations theory. Summer will be over shortly.

Tomatoes have begun coming in, the SunGold and the SunSugar cherry toms, bright orange when fully ripe, and so sweet they are barely a vegetable, more like a tiny plum. The heat two weeks ago was great for the toms, but wiped out my marigolds and forced them to seed and they died all at once. Scattering seeds where the parent plant expired will hopefully return a few sprouts before November and frost, plus I replaced a few because I missed the sunny globes on the porch step planters. How can basil die so easily? Just a few days of heat, they were watered every day---I may have to cheat and buy a few big plants like I did last year from Trader Joe's. I was eating peas from my neighbors' garden this morning, and they said the patch was done for the summer. Ha! Before they left town, that is. And the pods are tender and as edible as the peas inside. Now, about the three ripe figs about to fall off the fig tree, purple as black grapes and soft---might have to bring those home. They have about 200 new green ones on their way to ripe, they won't miss these. Fig leaves, all jokes aside, are actually very elegant and beautiful, I'd never seen a real one so closely before, what a great woodcut or rubbing it would make. All jokes aside.

This is a week almost every year that I would have taken for vacation time from the store. I believe there was almost an unacknowledged agreement with myself about the bookends of February 1st--- being the first date of being jobless and also the announcement of the release of the 7th and final volume of that dreaded book, that would be occurring with accompanying frenzy on--- July 21st. A weird kind of stasis, purgatory-lite, now that That Book is out and done, not worked through like the past ten years of my work life (paperbacks, remember!) I feel absolutely free of it. A big book retail ritual that I missed completely! Imagine what being on the other side of a book retail Holiday Season will feel like? Giddiness is overtaking me. Kind of like when ending a relationship, just getting through the first set of holidays by marking little anniversaries, you really begin to let go for real. Two years on, you don't even remember to remember. Usually.

Cha-ching!

I'm so happy, all cashed in and no one around to celebrate with.
Linsey is driving to Denver.
Jolie is in FLA.
Steven is driving to the Coast for work.
Betty is in FLA.
Peg is at work.
Kathy is on Whidbey Island.
Can I bug Harvey? No--too many service vans in front of his house installing stuff. I need some more friends. Okay, so back to work it is then.

Edina left me a note, congrats that my first month was good, it's only the beginning! Now I see why people sell furniture there, more bang for the buck. Gotta get on that this month. Also raise my prices, because after surveying the other booths, my merchandise is on the lower end. Plastic is good over $10 purchases, so round it up when in doubt. I'm so excited!

Since it isn't reaching 100 degrees this week like it was predicted, I can actually get some things done in the house, like almost completely setting up my home office yesterday. Everything except moving the computer, so that will be today. I also found out that Southeast is fully out of reasonably priced tomato cages, so we'll have the Martha-esque look after all, wonderful slender bamboo stakes and sisal tastefully tied off, to bear the precious burden of the heirloom Zapotecs, Black Prince, and Black Brandywines in my future. In the Race to the Fruit, the four cherry tomatoes are surpassing the three slicer plants significantly, so it's time to work some Green Magic out there. A wind chime, some crystal pendants, Baroque music in the morning. I've been dreaming of a tomato surplus for years, and I want it to happen this summer, I can sell them on Saturday and Sundays at Groovy Rhubarb. Think of the lycopenes...

One of my former colleagues emailed me yesterday to catch up and say "Hi", and told me a bit about the old sales team, who's ahead so far, summer sales blockbuster preparations, the politics of old. It all seemed so far away. Has it been six months since Christmas already? Six months since we began shutting down our two stores in the midst of holiday insanity crowds and life uncertainty? Six months since I felt a tad panicked about not being a store manager for Large Chain Bookstore after over ten years, who am I now? Knowing I had a lot of time to figure it out and not to panic?
Yep. My separation process is just about complete, I've made great progress in finding out who I am after all these years in the machine. I didn't melt, fall apart, run sobbing to beg for my old job back, or walk around twirling my hair and 'saving' people in shopping malls. Life has been good, and I truly believe will continue to be. Money details are in process of being worked out, and the whole "status" of my "career" has been abandoned for the much more worthwhile purpose and over-all quality of life exploration. Not to veer into being maudlin, but it's been a meaningful six months. I miss playing with cool new books, trading one-liners with Linsey and the crew, and the money was okay. At the end of the day, it wasn't my store. But Groovy Rhubarb is, and the sketchbook is full of ideas for new money-generating items to spread into the world for some cash, and the beginning is in the black. I'm in total Groovy Gratitude.

Farmer's Market Time

Which in Portland, really fires up in earnest about now, almost July. This week's Willamette Week listed some of the most well-known produce and Farmer's Markets, along with hours of operation, type of selection, degree of carnival atmosphere, and how to get there. One that they forgot, is the Asian Produce Farmer's Market out Division and 92nd Ave, a smaller, recent start-up market, with no carnival touches, but vendors happy to talk to you about the vegetables and herbs unfamiliar to you, and what to do with them. Oh Happy Day! Free parking and bring cash. I'm already thinking of the slender eggplants to grill, and the choys---grilled choy is amazing!

The Montavilla Farmer's Market will get underway in a few weeks on westbound Stark just east of Mt Tabor in the gravel lot by the stoplight. Now that the Montavilla blocks are fun to stroll again, I'm hoping for a rejuvenated interest here, with lots of local fruits and herbs as well as the pepper-zucchini-tomato standards. Seeing as cucumbers are going for $1 each at the Fred Meyers around here, please someone deliver us from highway robbery and make their own local fortune selling us local unwaxed cucumbers, please! I know gazpacho has ebbed into passe, but those of us who still make it just wince at prices like that.

One sad note---Uncle Fred's produce market on Hawthorne below the Safeway is closing---what used to be the dependable neighborhood pumpkin into Christmas tree vacant lot and abandoned 1940s gas station, had morphed into the dependable year-round outdoors tarped produce and flower market, featuring local harvest. The market owners' said they had signed a lease knowing full well that the lot owners could shut it down eventually, and the site will become another of the rusted steel, glass and sloped roof condo blocks that are appearing along Hawthorne since 2005.
And screwing up traffic for years at at time, I might add. The one on Hawthorne & SE 33rd took forever to finish, and there are two in various stages of start-up and completion up at 44th & 45th-Hawthorne, another traffic snarl with the big big crane set-up. Damned housing market, because not everyone can pay $450,000 for a 3bdrm bungalow in SE anymore, we need $200K 1 bdrm condos like the Pearl has to make up for it. Belmont maybe next. I may be a renter forever at this rate. We could become like New Yorkers, marrying for real estate location, not love, like getting a residential Green Card. "We've never had sex, don't exchange gifts at holidays, I met her parents once at Passover, but look at our SE44th Ave Dream Bungalow! This is my suite..." "Happy Anniversary...uh, it's Jeff, right?" Air kisses all around.

Speaking of crabby-grass (meaning me), poor Steven's new sod is beginning to do the Summer Thing and browning, so we were kidding with him that it was nice while it lasted, but now we're going to put in the community garden, midnight roto-tilling dirt commandos. He didn't think it was funny too much, so we stopped teasing him, but it boggles my mind to think of the farmer's market we could have here...better stop. I never imagined in all my years in Florida that Portland would have such a Mediterranean climate, zone 7, and even 8 in south facing, protected areas.

My neighbors have 8ft dill plants already, their blossom heads blowsing in the wind like Nile River papyrus plants, and the bronze fennel nearby is going to bolt soon. It hasn't even been hot since the beginning of May, must be ideal conditions for these herbs, but made my early tomato plants kind of stall out and not take off until about 10 days ago. Now they are about 2ft tall and set with lots of blooms and little pea-sized tomatoes. Might have to ditch the short cages and go for the bamboo tri-pods this year...when my inner-Martha takes over full time. I had a lot of hopes for a big basil crop this summer, until I skipped a week of wheatgrass for the cat, and he ate all but two of my basil starts. Lesson to me, that cat knows how to really hurt me.

The latest version of the Market String Bag is now available in grape colored cotton, along with Provencal yellow---so many enterprises, so many digital pics to take. Today I'm putting the photo lighting box together, which I gleaned from the profile photo on a vendor's site on Etsy, so I don't have to wait for a sunny day to take cedar fence shots outside. I should put together a photo pictorial on how to make a photo light box and post that on Craftzine's blog page...instant fame. As the newest shirt in the Groovy Rhubarb line will say---"Where's my staff?" I'm going to make it Tang Orange, and dedicate it to Steven, for enduring my carded button pitch with such grace yesterday after a long drive from Medford. Bless you.

Love That 'Completion' Thing

Going to ship off tomorrow morning to arrive in time for Betty's birthday next week.
The fastest I have ever completed a knitting project, it fits, I only had to rip out part of one sleeve, and this shot shows the blues and purples the most accurately.

I LOVE NORO YARN!!!

The t-shirt style took 8 and a half skeins of the 10 I got, so there's enough for me to make a little trophy piece of this yarn that I love so much. Maybe short fingerless gloves. With a thin leather palm for driving. Girl Genius works overtime even when unemployed. (Why am I writing in the imperative?)

Beginning week 3 of Groovy Rhubarb at the House of Vintage, and I am the only used LP vendor anywhere near the mid-Hawthorne shopping areas. This week it was all tourists branching out from the Waterfront Village areas (from the rain) and doing the vintage shopping trip, German tourists more than from anywhere else. Anything with a rose motif was hot, and I sold a lovely teapot set, big ticket item, ding ding! Since the urgent gift knitting is done, I am now launching full tilt into the crafting of the merchandise for the Etsy site, scrounging for more items for the booth, and desperately trying to finish organizing my work room. The coolest thing in the whole world was liberating some cardboard shelf trays from the recycling bin of the hippie grocery store on Hawthorne, which I painted a lovely French Blue, and now they all match, look like something from an organizing store, and suit my need for visual consistency in tools for stashing materials. And I truly dig dig dig French Blue, which is white and blue kids' tempera paint mixed together. Really. Basically free. I bought those quart bottles of tempera paint at Jerry's Art-a-Rama in Deerfield Beach at least 10 years ago. (shut up)

Along the lines of the 'Completion Thing', the Rose Festival is over, so I'm going to segue into Mock Oranges for the gallery this week. If possible, it's almost a jasmine-orange blossom blend, and 300% intoxicating. And it's been a cool spring the last few weeks, so everything is still in bloom instead of bolting and withering too fast. With glowing skies until 10pm and later for the next month or so, the perfume settles back onto the porch in the evenings, and it feels like being in a Maxfield Parrish painting. Or so it feels to me.

Congratulations to Linsey for completing her apprenticeship in horse gambling, slapping down and taking names, so she can get on with the tattoo artist apprenticeship. Or was it the Reading to Gifted Toddlers charity summer? Cruise Director for the Naughty Secretaries' Wham-Bam Whirlwind Tour of Patagonian Nite Clubs? Something publishing? Her blog kills! Read her brilliance while she guest blogs about crappy bookstores.

Peg did the gravity tests on the WWOTP IPA #2 and we are clear for take-off. The Summer Slug-a-Chug party is this Saturday, when the suspecting public will be sampling the new batch, lining up for more, and stopping the presses to make our brewery famous. It was suggested that the new finished basement space would make a perfect pub. Not by me, but I do agree. Since it would be down a small flight of concrete stairs, I'm thinking "The Fall On Inn". Or maybe "Den of Iniquity". I'll stop now.

Absolutely Boggled!

Pulling myself away from the two boxes of BUTTONS that arrived this morning to share with y'all my utter rhapsodic bliss and new flowsy determination to launch the new money-making thing.

My trip to the Thrift Emporium yesterday was very worthwhile, and I browsed there for an hour, to "get a read" on the place and the people there, and the shoppers. I am now on the contact list for the owner/manager to call me, since it is nearing the end of the month, some people decide not to renew at the last minute, and they have sudden openings. The used record store that used to be two doors down closed after Christmas, and I think it is perfect for me to segue on in with all my vinyl and used books, since the place also used to be a used book and mag store. This is very exciting, dare I say.

And as my pal Jolie reminded me, look out yard salers, Laura will be blitzing you and making off with goodies!! Oh what fun!

But the buttons... Within an hour, I had started sorting all the Bakelite ones from the mother of pearl ones, and tossing the bone, wood, rubber, and metal ones in little piles in a flat box.
The mother of pearls began a nice cozy soak in some warm Mrs Meyers' and water, and the bed is layered with beach towels for them all to dry in the spring breeze coming in the south windows. (sounds like a great place to spend an afternoon to me) I've already been dreaming up the way to card some of them up to wholesale to stores and sell on my soon to launch Etsy site. I'm using them for lots of things besides fastening layers of clothes together, as you may imagine. Like beads, some sort of past life thing makes me value buttons like primitive money, trade currency, circulate and value, hoard then sell. I'm a crow, they sparkle, feel good in my hand, look good on a string, and I wanna just pounce and fly away with them.

Perhaps I'm being naive, but this feels like the right thing for me to be doing right now. The ultimate irony of a Worst Case Scenario being realized in January, and the screeching end of a 10+ years commitment like being dumped for a younger woman is, I look around and see only good as a result. I do terribly miss Linsey and some of my peeps, and the day to day intelligent and goofy fun we had, but almost everyone has gone on to greater glory, and that is a delight to me. I had wanted this to be the summer fer shure that I got out of there, but being termed was better, just more of a shock and adjustment period. Re-entry to my real life has taken me most of three months, really. And there was that pay off... (gracias, Spiritu Mejor!)

Almost everyday I sit down here and write something, either blog, essay around, business plan mission statement type of thing, or another list of story ideas. Almost everyday, I go outside and check out the tomato blossoms, pull some weeds, water herbs, smell roses, put in a new plant, check out my neighbors' plantings. Free Wi-Fi has hit my neighborhood, my cellphone is fun, the gym is nearby, I walk to the Daily Grind for some veggies. Late spring, great apartment, fabulous folks nearby, great dogs and friendly cats, grills in the evening, and I am so in gratitude that the push to reach here has actually led me here, where I dreamed and intended to wind up. Is this a mid-life thing? I think so. Two months ago it dawned on me I just didn't care anymore about a title, a corporate identity or status, whether I was promoted or passed over, listened to by muckity-mucks or unheard, valued and retained, or just a number and let go. It doesn't matter to me. It felt so good to let it all go, and be happy where I am, doing what I choose to do from here, loving my Portland Life, feeling more genuine than I have in .... years and years and years.
I've got 15 basil plants going on my back porch to plant in about a week, the tomatoes are staked or caged, the lavender and sage, creeping thyme and echinacea are filling out in the rock garden, and I found a nice Thai basil plant to add to the collection. And now the buttons...
Nothin' but smiles from me.

Great Gifts From Web and Tube!

While the sun is out, and splendid is the breeze, I am to be found outdoors, in the car with the windows rolled down and music turned up, on the porch, in the garden, harassing the neighbors.

Then the icy North Wind crashes my party, and I'm running inside for a sweater, or if the sun disappears, I just stay in. Stuff to do, and all that. There's the writing, dishes, napping, and the usual work-pursuing, web surfing and tube watching. Before I chide myself for all this slacking, I need to just say that you can never predict where your inspiration will come from, or what freebie gifts you may uncover using these tools of the devil. Allow me to elaborate...

There's The Chair from the Requip commercial, restless leg syndrome drug. "The Chair" has thousands of people (like me) very stirred up and looking for a clue on how to get one of these. There are threads and blogs and a torrent of interest for a chair that does not exist. The drug company says the ad agency did a mock-up just for filming the commercial, and since all the interest has been on the chair and not on the drug, "The Chair" is being de-emphasized in the newer runnings of the Requip ads. There are millions of dollars to be made on manufacturing this chair, and so far, the demand in the marketplace is not being met by anyone. All that money not being made. As a former business woman, and whipped horse of the corporate 'delight and surprise' dog & pony show, this unmet market astounds me. Millions, I say. No one is biting.

Another television gem has been the Lexus ad featuring Nina Simone. I remember when she died a few years ago, and we played her CDs at work all the time when I was a music department manager. But the gift of this ad is that the CD this song is taken from has been out of print, a live from Paris album 1968, and now this interest from the commercial (Google it & see) is bringing this amazing artist to the attention of a wide sweep of listeners, young and not so, and I'm sure will resurrect this CD from the archives and make it at least downloadable somewhere. This is beautiful.

Back on the Web, I have been trying to find which roses are growing in our garden here, and the web has great resources to do this. Being in the City of Roses, it is a fun day to go to the Rose Garden, but I kind of get overwhelmed and would just rather enjoy the experience than do research. Our neighborhood yards have some really old rose specimens, and my neighbor thinks that some of the grafted stems have died off and the root stock is reasserting itself after 50-odd years of predictable blooming. If you drive past some yards along a street, there are common trendy types from years past, that makes me think that Fred Meyers had a sale in 1963 on coral lipstick pink teas, or they all shared divided clumps. I love a mystery.

Etsy. I wish I had thought of it. I have big plans now to max my tschochskies there. Sounds sleazy. The marketplace for all things hand made, and the only crocheted toilet top tissue box covers you would find would probably be a reference to what this website is NOT. This is the next threshold for the hipster DIY nouveau-geek or whimsical offbeat crafster. I am so there.

The History Channel had a two hour show Monday night called "Hippies", featuring many interviews, film footage, analysis by contemporaries, Peter Coyote and the Diggers, music, Vietnam, and the Man. Although it had its omissions and gloss-over-lightly areas, it was a great show and I'd recommend people of all ages to see it, younger viewers with their Boomer of choice to fill in some gaps. Fabulous way to spend two chilly evening hours.

While Google-ing some people I used to hang out with in Ann Arbor, I discovered that my old pal Misty Callies is super-famous!! There is a prime level hip restaurant in New York City called 'Prune'. The chef there is named Gabrielle Hamilton, a famous younger woman who has almost single-handedly revolutionized "great little eatery" standards in Manhattan. I'm sure Paris has been thrown out of there at least once. Anyways, Gabrielle wrote an article for Food & Wine magazine that goes on and on how my pal Misty was her mentor in the late 90s in Ann Arbor, working at Misty's restaurant on State Street called Zanzibar. Misty and her brother Todd run it, but Misty is the visionary and driving force (as she always was 20 years ago) and taught the future Prune owner a new, non-NY way of creating a restaurant. I was so thrilled, and the story had a pic of Misty at work, and talked about her gruff communication style but genius of concept and attitude. Misty was my hero for many years back in the early 80s when I worked with her and her brother at various places in Ann Arbor, and it was so gratifying to see Misty getting some national press and praise. And the stories I could tell about parties at Misty's house...and I may some day with the names changed for the usual reasons.

Two more commercials, and I'm done...

The silly Comcast (how I hate thee) one with the tiger striped tattooed guy---"Sorry Roger, you tiger now!" Can't help it, I laugh every time.
The one with the Asian guy all done up in a Riverdance costume and headband, dancing his heart out in the middle of his living room, twirling, leaping, kicking, Irish pipes playing...then his wife and daughter walk through the door carrying shopping bags and just gawk---"Wow, you're home early" he says weakly. I can't remember what the product is, because I just laugh so hard, oh wait, it's a flooring company. Hardwood floors. Must be HGTV. It's tough to write funny ads, it so skews to the target audience, but everyone who sees it should get it.

I'm an amateur sociologist, it's my job.